


The Kingdom of Heaven (is a Condition of the Heart)

by juniperwick



Category: Runemarks Series - Joanne Harris
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, post-Runelight, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperwick/pseuds/juniperwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asgard is achieved at last, but Loki feels far from at home. Maddy apologises for her treachery. One day, perhaps, they will be more than utterly useless with their emotions - but that day is not today. (Continuation of a scene from the end of Runelight.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kingdom of Heaven (is a Condition of the Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Watch out for mega-spoilers if you haven't finished the book yet! Seriously, you'll regret it if you don't.

As Maddy stood, face turned up into the sunlight outside the Seven Sleepers Inn (the sunlight which once shone over Malbry and now warmed this ground, which was somehow both Malbry and Asgard at once), Loki followed her outside and paused behind her. Maddy sensed more than heard him; felt him almost put a hand upon her shoulder, before hesitating.

Without turning, she said “He's real, isn't he? Sugar?”

“As real as Asgard.” Loki dropped his hand and came to stand beside her, facing up the road that led to Red Horse Hill. “Which, considering everything that just happened, y'know, feels pretty damn real to me.”

“And what about Tyr?”

“The one-armed wonder?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Not hiding in that cellar, that's for sure. Hel knows.”

A half smile crossed Maddy's face. “Is that an expression, or does she really?”

“Both, possibly. If she's back at her post, she'll know soon enough.” Loki snorted. “Hel always keeps her word, my bony – ”

“I'm sorry.” Maddy interrupted, turning to fix Loki with a granite stare. “About before.”

“You might have to be more specific,” Loki said, although the glimmer in his eyes told Maddy he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Maddy made a face. “You know what I mean. About not backing you up back in Malbry, when Maggie and I awoke Sleipnir. Letting the gods believe it was you.”

“Oh, that?” Loki waved a hand airily. “Seems like years ago. Gods know I've probably aged years since.” He smoothed a hand over his hair. “Feels as if I ought to have gone grey.”

Maddy slapped him lightly across the arm. “Loki.”

“All right, all right.” He shrugged again, kicked a stone. “It hurt my delicate little feelings a touch, I have to admit. And you choosing your sister over me did mean I ended up chained to my wife, escorting a circus of querulous gods halfway across Inland, getting attacked by my own reflection, almost drowning, being gambled by Frigg, strangled by Hel and nearly dying in a further myriad of colourful and exciting ways.”

Maddy was staring at him, amber-grey eyes wide. “What?”

Loki went on as if she hadn't spoken. “But it did turn out ultimately that all that was rather engineered by Frigg in the first place, so it's dubious how much blame I could really heap upon that lovely and remarkably thick-skulled head of yours.”

He had begun to wander, hands in pockets, up the lane. Maddy, after a moment to absorb all that, followed. “What was that about Ethel?”

Loki rolled his head on his neck. “All a part of the Allfather's scheme. Can't you see his hand in it?”

After a brief moment of consideration, Maddy had to admit that he was right. She resolved to ask One-Eye about the full extent of his machinations at a later date. Now she shook her head, more to clear it than anything else. “Anyway, the point I was making – ”

“You're sorry. I got that.”

His tone quelled Maddy. They walked on for a bit without speaking. At last, at the top of the road out of town, she stopped and grabbed Loki's arm. Loki turned to her, eyebrows raised. “Look,” she said, “stop milking it. I can see you practising your hangdog expression out of the corner of my eye.” If she sounded a little desperate, she hoped Loki hadn't noticed. She stuck out a hand. “Friends?”

At last, a lopsided grin spread over Loki's face. For Maddy, it was like the sun coming out from behind clouds. “Oh, all right.” He took her hand, gripped it tight. “Friends. I need all the friends I can get, anyway.”

Maddy acknowledged this with a tilt of her head. Then she glanced down. For some reason, they were still holding hands. Neither had thought to pull away.

Loki's hand was dry and cool, pleasantly so. She knew this; had known this for years. Why should she be struck by it now?

Loki frowned at her, puzzled, and followed her gaze. A moment passed as he stared at their linked hands as if he didn't quite understand what they were. Then, suddenly, he dropped Maddy's hand as quickly as if he had found himself holding a hot coal. A different kind of grin flashed across his face: sudden and skittish as a hare, and strangely guilty. Maddy felt warmth creeping up her neck. They were awfully close together.

Then Loki lifted his left hand, the one she had been holding, and waggled the third finger, where he wore a plain gold ring. “Embarrassing, isn't it?”

The significance dawned upon Maddy slowly. She said, “Your wedding ring.”

“Can't get the bloody thing off, no matter what I do. Seems I'm keeping _this_ promise whether I like it or not.” By unspoken intuition, they both began walking again, out of the village and up to the hill. “Thought I was rid of her after I escaped the Netherworld.”

“She loves you, doesn't she,” Maddy said, and her voice was too flat for it to be a question.

Loki answered anyway. “Heart and soul, unfortunately.”

“Seems she's got loyalty enough for the both of you.”

“You call it loyalty, I call it idiocy.” 

Maddy stared at the ground as she walked, face riven by a scowl. “Why do you think she's stupid for loving you? I think she's – well – bloody admirable, I think.”

Loki let out a mirthless laugh. “You don't really. You're a terrible liar. I mean, come on, Maddy!” He spread his hands. “This is me we're talking about. Me! Fabulous, dazzling, handsome, intelligent me! And she wants...” He struggled for words.

“Wants what? You?” Maddy said, a slant of irony colouring her tone. “How dare she.”

Loki shook his head. “That's the thing – she doesn't, really, want me. Everything she wants of me would make me... not me. D'you see?”

Sighing, Maddy said, “Unfortunately, I think I do.” She threw him a sidelong glare. “Doesn't make you any less of a rat, though.”

“Whoa!” Loki threw up his hands. “Hey! You're supposed to be on my side!”

“I don't remember ever promising that,” Maddy said, and quickened her pace, striding ahead up the lane. 

Loki, irritatingly, kept up easily on his long legs. “What can I do? I'm me, she's her. We're incompatible. Plus, I don't really get why this is such an issue. Maddy, come on.”

Maddy didn't reply, but Loki kept pace with her all the way up the lane, up to where the hedges fell away and the ground opened up. The lane curved, but Maddy kept going, stomping over the grass and up the steadily inclining slope of the hill. Her cheeks were flushed with stubborn warmth, and she couldn't shake off this unreasonable irritation with the Trickster. But why? 

As she reached the great chalk outline of the horse carved into the side of the hill, she slowed. She stopped, at last, standing before the horse's single eye. Loki halted beside her, but, perhaps wisely, said nothing.

“So much of my life,” Maddy said, “began on this hillside.” She thought of the tunnels below the real Red Horse Hill, the World Below, and wondered if they were here, too. She nodded at the ground. “We met down there. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. I'm not senile yet.” Loki brought a hand to his face. “You hit me in the nose.” He rubbed the feature in question, as if it still hurt.

“You called yourself Lucky. You said you were a 'prentice boy from the Ridings.”

Loki elbowed her in the side. “And you almost fell for it.”

Maddy couldn't help but laugh. “I'm sorry. Again.” She shook her head. “I know you can't be other than you are.”

“Well, thanks for making that sound like an insult.”

Instead of replying, Maddy sat abruptly down on the warm grass below the horse's eye. Loki followed suit, crossing his long legs and plucking a dandelion, the petals of which he proceeded to shred absently. Dissatisfaction still frothed in Maddy's belly, unfocused and as irritating as a papercut. She nudged Loki's knee with her own. “Where are you going to live now?”

A grimace momentarily disfigured Loki's face. “Not the foggiest. I don't fancy going back... well, back to you-know-who. It's all a bit happy families for my taste.” He squinted up at the familiar sun, sprinkling a clump of yellow petals to the breeze. “Homeless in Asgard. That's a cheering thought.”

_Why_ , Maddy thought, _don't you think you deserve to be loved_? But she didn't say that. Instead she said, “Oh, stop wallowing in self pity. You can stay here with me if you want.”

Loki looked at her, green eyes bright with hope. “Sure? You know it's never exactly going to be a happening spot if I'm around.”

“It's not a bloody popularity contest.” Maddy rolled her eyes. “Get over yourself and stay, if you want to. If you don't, well, makes no odds to me.” She flopped back onto the grass, arms over her head, and closed her eyes against the sunlight.

Loki exhaled something that was almost a laugh, but said nothing for a long moment. There was the faint sound of him continuing to yank petals off his dandelion. Then he said, “I missed you, you know.”

Turning her head to the side and squinting against the light, Maddy saw that Loki wasn't looking at her, but at the flower, twirling it between his fingertips. She closed her eyes again, turning her face back up to the warmth of the sunlight. “I missed you too,” she said, and held out a hand. After a second's worth of hesitation, Loki's long fingers curled through hers. Maddy squeezed, gently. They stayed like that, not looking at one another, for a long time.

At last Loki, clearing his throat, pulled away. “Anyway,” he said. Maddy turned her head to fix him with her grey-gold eyes. Loki didn't meet her gaze, but squinted up at the sky, then down at the grass again. “I _will_ stay,” he said. “Ta.”

Maddy opened her mouth to say _no problem_ but Loki had already shifted, quick as a wink, into his falcon Aspect. With one leap and a downward gust of air from his wings, he was up and gone, already disappearing into the blue, blue sky. Maddy followed him with her eyes for as long as she could before he was lost in the glare of the sun. Then she slumped back onto the grass. She picked up the ravaged flower he had left behind. _Idiot_ , she thought, not uncharitably, and whether that was directed at Loki or at herself, she wasn't sure.


End file.
